Journey is like Scorsese On Scorsese, in that it goes project by project in his filmography (up until Cape Fear), but it's told with additional ancedotes and comments by those also involved in each project - Schrader, DeNiro, Pesci, etc.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

Not a book about Scorsese per se, but a passage from a chapter on him from Roger Ebert's 'Life Itself' that made laugh and I really identified with, thought I'd share:

In 1983, we had a long talk about his film The King of Comedy, a movie the studio was ready to give up on until some good reviews started coming in. For Scorsese, the making of the film coincided with a painful period in his life, a time when he fell in love with Isabella Rosselini, married her, and was divorced. Although it is easy to see The King of Comedy as the most barren and unemotional of Scorsese's films, that wasn't the way he saw it.

"The amount of rejection in this film is horrifying," he told me. "There are scenes I almost can't look at. There's a scene where Deniro is told I hate you! and he nods and responds Oh, I see, right, you don't want to seem me again. I made the movie during a very painful period in my life. I was going through the Poor Me routine. And I'm still very lonely. Another relationship has broken up."

"Since Isabella?"

"Since. I'm spending a lot of time by myself now. I go home and watch movies on video and stay up all night and sleep all day. If I didn't have to work I'd sleep all the time. I've never had such a long period when I've been alone."

Toward the end of our dinner I discovered by accident how deeply he was hurt. I mentioned a new film named Exposed by James Toback, starring Natassja Kinski. I said I thought Kinski possessed whatever rare magic Marilyn Monroe had; that whatever Kinski appeared in, good or bad, she commanded the screen.

"I can't bear to see Kinski in anything," Scorsese said. "She reminds me too much of Isabella. It tears me apart. I can't even go to see a film by the Taviani brothers, because Isabella and I had a little courtship on the set of one of their films. I can't even go back to island of Salina, where Visconti's The Leopard was shot, because we were there. In fact, I can hardly even watch a film by Visconti without growing depressed."

"By memories of Isabella?"

"By memories of a period when I thought I was happy. I'll put it that way. A period when I really thought I had the answers."

"Okay, then," I said, "I've got a new movie that can't possibly depress you or bring up any old associations. It's called Say Amen, Somebody, and it's this wonderful documentary about gospel music."

"Can't see it." Scorsese was grinning, but he was serious.

"Why not?"

"It's distributed by United Artists Classics."

"You mean you can't see a film that is distributed by a company that is connected to a movie you once loved?"

He smiled. "I'd see the United Artists logo and it would ruin the movie for me."

My parents' one moviegoing experience they've relayed to me countless times was when they sat in the same row as Scorsese and Rossellini to watch a film at a Colorado festival. I'll always look back at that memory differently now.

Scorsese on Scorsese by Faber and Faber is a good start. It was my favorite Scorsese book for years, but something always felt missing - it felt a little too neat and tidy to truly reflect the Scorsese that I felt in his movies etc, the mad, film obsessed, passionate, heart on his sleeve, living and dying for cinema, type guy. So then I bought the Scorsese Interviews book, and it's amazing. Very personal, intimate and frank about the filmmaking process. There's an amazing interview between him and Richard Price, amongst other amazing interviews. Last year I got the Cahiers du Cinema, Scorsese on Scorsese and again, very personal, with great photographs - lots of storyboards, script notes etc and two really interesting interviews with Thelma Schoonmaker on their process.